Norton Buffalo is known as a versatile harmonica player who is equally comfortable playing in the blues, rock, jazz, country, and R&B idioms.

Buffalo was born in Oakland, California, in 1951. He moved to Sonoma, California, in 1972, and then to Los Angeles in 1975, where he played with Commander Cody and, soon after, joined the Steve Miller Band where he remained the harmonica player for over twenty years, from the mid-1970s to the late 1990s. He also appeared as a studio musician on albums by Johnny Cash, Bonnie Raitt, and The Doobie Brothers.

In the 1980s Buffalo briefly formed a group with San Francisco–area musicians Micky Hart and Merl Saunders. Then in the late 1980s he teamed up with blues slide guitarist Roy Rogers to form a duet act. Following that, he formed his band the Knockouts, which recorded and performed for many years. Buffalo is still actively recording and performing today.